


(i know you've tried) but something stops you every time

by wintrs



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic, Eavesdropping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Spoiler for Episode: s05e09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 11:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14401053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintrs/pseuds/wintrs
Summary: Prentiss can't help but overhear Hotch and Reid's conversation on the jet.





	(i know you've tried) but something stops you every time

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first CM work! my characterization is shaky, but I love love love this show and binged almost the entire thing in like, two months. so.
> 
> title from hiding by florence + the machine

Prentiss is sitting in one of the disconnected chairs of the jet, trying (and failing) to read a book that Reid had recommended to her. It’s not that it isn’t interesting--Reid’s had her taste in books pretty much nailed since her first mention of Vonnegut--but there’s a little fragment of a thought that keeps resurfacing and bothering her.

The jet is mostly silent, as it usually is on long flights. Rossi is asleep in the chair to her right, breathing faintly but otherwise unmoving. JJ and Morgan take up one side of the table, JJ asleep and Morgan zoning out with his headphones. Reid and Hotch are seated on the other side, the former dozing with a book in hand and the latter doing paperwork. If Reid takes note of her mental distraction (she’d give it about a 50/50) he doesn’t show it, but Hotch occasionally looks up and meets her eyes.

Emily turns back to her book, if only to escape the glances in her direction. She gets another page done, but when she flips to the next and has to re-read the first sentence multiple times, she lets it go. She sets the book down and scrunches her eyes shut, laying back a bit in her chair. They’ve got a long flight ahead of them, and Lord knows that no matter how strong her will, she doesn’t have the willpower for anything productive.

“You still up for dinner tonight?” Hotch murmurs. Emily almost opens her eyes and glances back to see who he’s talking to, but Reid pipes up before she can.

“We’ll be arriving at approximately 8:25, which is a little late for dinner,” Reid says. “I still want to, though. This case was rough, but I haven’t seen Jack in so long, so…” Intra-team profiling is strictly prohibited, but they’re  _ profilers  _ and Emily can’t help what her subconscious mind does. He’s not trying to garner sympathy; that isn’t something that Reid lets himself do. He’s just guilty and that’s the emotion, she has come to find out, that he’s the least adept at hiding.

Hotch clearly picks up on it as well. “He misses you, too. But he knows it’s just the job--I am his father, after all. He’ll be happy to see you.”

“I know, it’s just that, y’know, I wonder sometimes if he thinks I’m,” Reid pauses. “Well, I wonder if he thinks I’m trying to encroach on his territory, so to speak.”

There’s a slight rustle of fabric, but Emily knows she can’t risk opening her eyes yet. She’s interested now, despite herself, despite the inherent sliminess of the eavesdropping she’s unsubtly doing. On the off chance that the pair think she’s sleeping--which, again, they’re profilers, so probably not--she doesn’t want to interrupt the illusion of privacy.

“Sometimes, I think that brain of yours thinks too much.” He speaks with a quiet sort of affection, similar but different to the times when she’s heard him speak to his son.

“It’s just--”

Nobody on the team likes cutting Reid off, but sometimes they just have to. Whether it’s to stop him from talking about the nuances of road traffic legislation, or from running anxious circles around himself with his wonderful, torturous mind.

“I know where you’re going, and Jack really doesn’t think like that. Believe me. If he thought I was replacing Haley with you, or that he couldn’t love you and still love Haley, or any other crazy idea you’re thinking, I would’ve gotten it out of him by now. He loves you, Spencer.” Emily allows herself a little glance at that. Reid is half-in, half-out of his own seat, and although he isn’t fully leaning into Hotch his head is tucked neatly against Hotch’s neck. Hotch has taken one of Reid’s long hands into his own, rubbing his thumb in a little circle the same way Reid does to himself occasionally.

Reid’s other hand comes up to scrub at his dark eyes. “I know. I know that,” he mumbles.

“So believe it,” Hotch says, and Emily wonders if it’s really so simple. As if anything could be that simple for Spencer Reid.

Reid’s only response is to finally lean fully into Hotch, to let the other man’s arm come up to wrap around his skinny shoulders and pull him in close. The scene is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide, but Emily still feels acutely that she is the uninvited voyeur of an illicit affair between two lovers. In a way, she supposes, that is exactly what she is.

She lets her eyes slip closed again, this time, with the intention to sleep.


End file.
